Africa-Press – Eswatini. A businessman and former member Parliament is under investigation for the alleged human trafficking of minors to Ireland.
The children are now in the custody of the European country’s government.
The former legislator is said to have smuggled two of his minors to Europe, where he is said to have dumped them at the home of a Liswati based in the European country last year.
He is alleged to have forged some documents, including the birth certificates of the minors.
The MP’s children were born from different mothers.
One has his mother employed at a local textile company in Matsapha, while the mother of the other one is now deceased.
What sparked the investigation was the conduct of one of the children, who is said to have bullied other pupils in that country’s local school, something which raised serious concerns with the parents.
The parents are said to have then mobilised themselves following complaints from their children, that they were beaten up at school by an African child who was new at the school.
The parents went to lodge a complaint to the school’s administration.
It was then that a probe into the behaviour of the child was launched and background check was made, with suspicions that the African child could be a victim of abuse at home.
Our sources with intimate details to this case disclosed that this led to the matter being taken up by government authorities after it was discovered that the children were from Africa, and the women who had custody of the children did not come clear about the children’s upbringing.
Further investigations into documents used to fly the children from Eswatini were not convincing enough to be authentic.
“They government of the Republic of Ireland then took the children to an alternative shelter as investigations intensified,” one of our sources revealed.
Interpol is also believed to have been handed with the case file, where serious questions are being probed on the surrounding circumstances to the minors’ international passports and the highly questionable state of one of the children’s birth certificates.
One of the minors’ birth certificates reflects that the supposed guardian of the minors was the mother, something which the Europe- based Liswati vehemently disputed.
“She told the Ireland officials that the children were dumped at her place by the former legislator, and wasn’t aware she was in fact registered on the birth certificate as the mother to one of the minors.”
This was another red flag.
“In fact, the woman said she couldn’t be a mother to the same child in question because she also has a child of her own born in the year that minor was born.”
Information gathered is that seeing the seriousness of the matter, following attempts to get hold of the businessman in Eswatini, the woman in Europe contacted a Cabinet minister (name also deliberately withheld) known to her personally.
This publication understands that the minister took up the matter with the office of the deputy prime minister that the businessman allegedly bribed certain officers to forge the documents to fly his children out of the country.
The motive behind taking his children overseas remains unknown.
“The seriousness of this matter cannot be overemphasised at this point, now that the Interpol and the deputy prime minister’s Office have been roped in to minvestigate the matter.”
The name of the businessman and former MP has been deliberately withheld, at least for now.
However, when contacted he confirmed that he was indeed under investigation for suspected human trafficking related cases, but declared his innocence, saying everything he did was in good faith and in the best interest of his children.
The businessman and former legislature also confirmed to have used illicit means such as forging birth certificates, because the Manzini-based law firm he had engaged to facilitate for the minors’ overseas travel was very slow, yet he wanted to have the children enrolled in school in that country.
“I have nothing to hide in this matter and I have explained everything to Interpol because the government of the Republic of Ireland couldn’t even understand that in Eswatini one can have a travel document and an international passport,” the former MP said.
“It’s just that some of the documents were done while the children had already left.”
The businessman sounded very concerned about the source of information, but nevertheless said he was willing to silence the person with the information about his investigation for the sake of his children.
Efforts to get a comment from the deputy prime minister hit a snag as his phone was not available on the MTN network until the time of compiling this report.
Deputy Police Information and Communications Officer Inspector Nosipho Mnguni referred comments to the Prevention of Human Trafficking and People Smuggling Unit.
The division’s Head of Secretariat, Nompumelelo Lukhelo confirmed knowledge of the matter, but stated that at the moment it was still under investigation by the REPS Interpol team.
“At the moment we cannot confirm and say it was indeed a human trafficking case, until all the investigations have been concluded. We will await their findings, then we can pronounce our position as well,” Lukhele explained.
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